Tsonga is hugely talented, but he doesn’t have the mind of a champion. We saw this starkly when he tried to serve out the first set at 5-4. It’s not just that his strokes tightened up, which is the sign of a fearful, excited brain running through too many possibilities. That’s very common. It happens all the time to champions, who take note of it and push through it. No, the telltale sign that Tsonga isn’t major-champion material was the 133-mph second serve he tried at deuce. It was proof that, psychically and emotionally, he had given up. He couldn’t filter through his options and his doubt. So he decided he would wipe all those options away with one serve. Ace or double-fault, he decided. Either way, the point will be over and I won’t have to suffer anymore.

He defaulted. Djokovic won the set and the match.

Do you recall how Roger Federer handled pressure in his prime? He kept it simple, and that kept him loose. There was no need to bring out the chalkboard for key points. He hit the ball hard, moved it around and kept it deep. That’s it. In 2007, Nikolay Davydenko, after losing once again to Federer in a major semifinal, called him “lucky.” Meaning, Federer consistently pasted the ball near the baseline until Davydenko’s concentration faltered. Andy Murray, after losing to Federer in the 2008 U.S. Open final, similarly noticed that the Swiss great just could not be counted on to make those half-inch misses that define so many losing efforts at the tail end of majors.

At this Wimbledon, Tsonga found the courage in the quarterfinals against Federer, who no longer instills fear like he once did. But in the semifinals, when a player starts to imagine holding up the trophy, he needed more than courage. He needed to think out there. And he couldn’t do it. Best shot against best shot, Tsonga is right there with Djokovic. But time and again today, indecision caused him to lose patience, and he would force a change of direction in the rally that sent the ball long or wide.

Maybe the 26-year-old Tsonga can still develop a champion's mentality. Andre Agassi did so relatively late in his development as a player, as did Federer. But it's better when it's just there, and that's something you can say for Djokovic. From the very beginning of his career -- like Jimmy Connors, like Bjorn Borg, like Rafael Nadal -- he’s believed in himself and his approach to the game. He’s had his issues with breathing problems, the source of which isn’t clear. But the fact is, the years he spent coming up short against Federer and Nadal wasn’t because he was self-destructing, like Tsonga just did. It was because Federer and Nadal simply were better players. Now Djokovic has pulled even and maybe even passed his rivals in pure ability. And he’s always had that champion’s mentality. So now there’s literally nothing to keep him from winning majors in bunches.